Greetings, dear readers.

It’s been another one of those weeks. Another of too many. Someone with a pain they didn’t know how to manage caused more pain than we can manage. People dear to me live within a few minutes of the high school where seventeen people lost their lives. All seventeen were dear to someone. My heart bends to them.

One we lost was a heroic 15-year old who did all he could to shelter others. He was a member of ROTC and was awarded admission to West Point for his bravery. Peter Wang. Sweet and brave and still a boy. The accolades are deserved and not enough.

Cadet Wang will not walk with his classmates. Not into West Point. And not at high school graduation. And that is heartbreaking and shameful. We have work to do. It is now left to us to honor the memory of all seventeen who died in Parkland, and the 58 before that in Las Vegas, and 49 before that in Orlando, and, and, and … all the way back to the heartbreak of Sandy Hook. And before that, too.

Too many. Way. Too. Many.

Thoughts and prayers are well and good, but they are not a solution. We are the only developed nation in the world with this kind of gun violence. And we are better than this. Time to pray with our feet and do what needs to be done. Peter Wang’s classmates are; it is time for the rest of us to stand up, too. Use your outside voice on this one, folks. The kids are not waiting on us, but they can’t vote and some of them can’t even drive; they could use some reinforcements.

Go get ’em, peeps.

There are lots of ways to be active on this issue. Here’s an example from someone I admire so much. She is using her outside voice.

Brene Brown blogging on guns and speaking truth

Stay tuned for more on the Here’s a Quarter blog next week! As always, your thoughts and comments are always welcome – they are moderated (I know – adulting again), so they may take a little while to appear, but I read them all and appreciate that you were here. Thank you!